‘Mentality is very important for this fight’: Bivol discusses Canelo vs Crawford matchup

Dmitry Bivol says Terence Crawford’s mentality heading into a fight against Canelo will be key.

Dmitry Bivol spends some time fielding questions about his thoughts on the potential fight between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford and he explains why he thinks Crawford’s mentality heading into the fight might be even more important that the physical size difference.

“First reaction, of course, it was about size of Crawford,” Bivol said when asked about his thoughts on the matchup. “Is it okay for him to move up two weight classes or not? But then I saw him in Dubai maybe a month ago and I thought ‘he’s big’ and he has very good skills...he is able to win this fight but...there are a lot of small things that we don’t know how he will deal with this.

“He need to get used to the power and pressure of 168 because it’s [different], big difference to be honest. Maybe he will get used to it. And how he will be feeling himself the same say he is fighting, how his training camp will go on — a lot of [questions]. But he is able, he has good skills, he is awkward, he can use two boxing stance. It gives him benefits, of course.

“It’s not only about getting used to the power, it’s also about being mentally ready because when people are not prepared mentally, they like afraid or scared, you become weak, your body become weak...Mentality is very important for this fight.

“At the same time we saw how Canelo was fighting against other guys like Charlo, maybe Callum Smith and we saw the huge difference. I think it’s not because of weight class, it’s about mentality of the opponents.”